Tuesday, December 13, 2016

When it comes to ordination, Pope Francis is still a puppet of the church (Comment)

There’s a deep struggle going on in the Catholic church when it comes to power and who exercises it.

Pope Francis has shaken things up, and he has some of the bishops and
cardinals mightily unnerved.

The Vatican bureaucrats, known as the
Curia, are unhappy with this pope.On matters of faith and morals, Francis is mostly winning so far.Francis is comfortable with “speaking truth to external power”:
demanding governments pay attention to refugees and asylum seekers, to
growing economic inequality, and to climate change. Francis is also at ease with a less-than-certain church, particularly
when it comes to questions of human relationships and moral
prescriptions.

Unlike his predecessor, the current pope is insistent
that issues like birth control, divorce and remarriage are not black and
white issues.Earlier this year Francis released a document Amoris Laetitia,
(On Love in the Family), in which the pope encouraged Catholic priests
to confront the reality that human lives are messy and complex.

He
asserted that complicated moral issues that arise in human relationships
must be responded to not with hard and fast rules, but rather by making
conscientious decisions in the sight of God.

As Francis put it, the church is there to form consciences, not replace them.This approach hasn’t sat well with some.

Four cardinals recently sent Pope Francis a letter demanding yes or no answers to five questions they say he has left unanswered in Amoris Laetitia.

It’s
unlikely Francis will give them the certainty they want. He wants them
to get used to uncertainty, and discern the right approach in these
modern times.

However, there is one area where Francis is ceding ground to the cardinals and the Curia: ordination.Ordination equals power inside the Catholic church.

Only the ordained
can contribute to theology, form church teaching and set church rules.

Only the ordained can control the money and the property.

Only the
ordained can respond to issues like the child sexual abuse crisis.

Only
the ordained can choose new bishops and cardinals.

Only the ordained can
administer the sacraments.

Only the ordained can vote for the next
pope. On ordination, the Curia are pulling the pope’s puppet strings.

Case in point: gay priests.

Just a few years ago, during a “free-wheeling” conversation with
reporters on a flight back from Brazil, Pope Francis was asked about gay
clergy.

There is so much being written about the gay lobby. I haven’t met
anyone in the Vatican yet who has “gay” written on their identity cards.
There is a distinction between being gay, being this way inclined and
lobbying. Lobbies are not good. If a gay person is in eager search of
God, who am I to judge them? The Catholic Church teaches that gay people
should not be discriminated against; they should be made to feel
welcome.

The Church, while profoundly respecting the persons in question,
cannot admit to the seminary or holy orders those who practise
homosexuality, present deep-seated homosexual tendencies or support the
so-called ‘gay culture.’ Such persons, in fact, find themselves in a
situation that gravely hinders them from relating correctly to men and
women. One must in no way overlook the negative consequences that can
derive from the ordination of persons with deep-seated homosexual
tendencies.

It seems the Curia decided that gay priests needed to be judged, after all.

In fact, the prohibition against homosexual men receiving ordination as cited above first appeared in 2005.

The fact that this paragraph re-appeared, word for word, in 2016 seems
to indicate that the Curia felt it necessary to clarify that the pope’s
words – “who am I to judge” – in no way replace or modify formal church
teaching when it comes to homosexual priests.This new document last week follows last month’s declaration by Francis that women will never be ordained as Catholic priests. Francis’ pronouncement on women priests didn’t come out of the blue.

It was a sop to the Curia and those bishops and cardinals alarmed by the
pope’s promise earlier in the year to review the question of whether women can be ordained as deacons.

Many assume that if women were granted ordination as Catholic deacons, ordination as priests would inevitably follow.

The Curia has for many years hoped a pope would declare the ban on
women’s ordination as infallibly held – the highest, most solemn form of
church teaching and most difficult to overturn.

Pope John Paul II came
close to doing so in 1995, and Francis’ statement this year, while not
infallibly issued, made clear there would be no room in his papacy to
move toward the priestly ordination of women.

Francis is fond of saying that “God is not afraid of new things.” But
when it comes to ordination, Francis seems afraid of the Curia, and the
Curia in turn seems afraid of women priests, married priests and gay
priests.

This is the fatal flaw in Francis’ approach: by not speaking truth to
internal power, by refusing to contemplate how ordination could be
expanded, Francis is limiting his own legacy.

Unless Francis expands and changes who makes decisions and how
decisions are made in the Catholic church, his papacy will risk changing
nothing in the long run.

All his emphasis on the poor, the dispossessed and the climate will
end up being just that – emphasis only.

All his commentary about facing
uncertainty and complexity of modern life will be just that –
commentary.

Francis said he imagined his papacy will be short, maybe only four or five years.

Once Francis leaves the papacy who will hold the power?

Who will make
the black and white rules?

The all-male priesthood, the traditionalist
cardinals and the Curia, no longer unnerved, and back in charge.